Welcome to the third edition of PalmerSquared on Festivals and hello to all my new subscribers too. Last week was a busy week for me in terms of discussing major events and festivals in London and Poland so I’m reflecting on those different but connected experiences.
For the last few months I’ve been immersed in the world of major events and festivals as I’m working on a project for Manchester City Council’s new Major Events Commission. So, it was opportune timing that last week I attended the launch of a new report hosted by Baroness Grey-Thompson at the House of Lords – Creating the golden thread: An ambition for major events in the UK.[1] In the same week I spoke on a panel at a symposium in the historic city of Bielsko-Biała in Poland on The Future of the European Capital of Culture brand.
So, for a bit of background context, 2022 was a bumper year for headline major events and festivals in the UK including Birmingham’s Commonwealth Games and Cultural Festival, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 (delayed due to the pandemic) and UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK. Early that year the UK Government’s Culture, Media and Sport Commons Select Committee published findings from its National Inquiry into the value, impact and evaluation of major cultural and sporting events in the UK. The Inquiry recognised that the level of investment by the UK Government and Department for Culture, Media and Sport into major events in 2022 alone was in the region of £1 billion. The findings highlighted a lack of a coherent UK-wide strategy and called for more effective evaluation of events over time to leverage learnings and better understand the value of legacy impact. Creating the golden thread: An ambition for major events in the UK report is the reponse to the Inquiry and makes recommendations ‘for a positive and progressive ambition-based and outcomes-led strategy.’
The report outlines the ‘golden thread of a national ambition’ with the following twelve shared benefits:
1. Collective experience
2. Inclusive community involvement
3. Planning and delivery
4. Talent showcase and development
5. Diversity and representation
6. Stakeholder collaboration
7. Cultural significance and rituals
8. Funding and investment
9. Economic impact
10. Alignment with priorities
11. Media attention and soft power
12. Legacy benefits
I was so glad to see ‘collective experience’ as the first benefit; see my newsletter last month on festivals and the notion of collective effervescence.
For anyone working in major events this report is a must read, as is its sister publication by FRY Creative and Spirit of 2012, Events Data Observatory Feasibility Report, which provides more detail on one of the main report’s recommendations. The hope is that an incoming government will see the Creating the golden thread report as a ready-made opportunity to move the dial on how and why we bid for, host and evaluate major events in the UK and ensure lasting legacy impacts.
Photo: Helen Palmer
In 2007 after I’d finished an exhausting but incredible four years as part of the team that established and delivered the inaugural Manchester International Festival, I was asked three separate times to take on running the marketing team for the Liverpool 2008 European Capital of Culture programme. Unfortunately, the timing wasn’t right for me, I was mentally and physically exhausted and I knew I didn’t have the capacity to launch into another major event and one that wasn’t on my doorstep.
Roll on 17 years later and Dr Beatriz Garcia invited me to bring my outsider perspective to a symposium in Poland on The Future of the European Capital of Culture brand. Beatriz is a former European Capital of Culture Selection and Monitoring panel member and expert on major cultural events. We worked together on Cultureshock, Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games cultural programme when she delivered our evaluation report, and she led the research and evaluation programme for Liverpool ’08.
2025 marks the 40th anniversary of the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) programme. It was in 1985 that the Greek singer, actor, activist and politician Melina Mercouri, who was then Greece’s Minister of Culture, and her French counterpart Jack Lang came up with the idea to unite Europeans through culture by designating an annual City of Culture, the first being held in Athens that year. 73 cities/city regions have since been awarded the designation that comes with a modest budget of €1.5m. Only two UK cities have held the title – Glasgow in 1990 and Liverpool in 2008. Of course, Leeds and Belfast were bidding for 2023, but, well, we all know why the UK reluctantly had to withdraw. Leeds went ahead with their planned year of culture anyway last year. This year did you know that three cities share the title – Tartu in Estonia, Bad Ischl in Austria and Bodø in Norway, the latter being the first ECoC held in the Arctic Circle? I must give a shout out to my former client Walk the Plank who staged the stunning Midsummer Mystery in Bodø last week, an outdoor celebration of Nordland’s landscape and nautical heritage.
At the symposium facilitated by Culture Next, we heard from representatives from former ECoC cities including Kaunas 2022 in Lithuania, Plovdiv 2019 in Bulgaria, Marseille 2013 in France, Matera 2019 in Italy, Luxembourg city 2007 and Esch-sur-Alzette 2022 in Luxembourg, Novi Sad 2022 in Serbia, Eleusis 2023 in Greece, and Larnaca in Cyprus (bidding for 2030), as well as cities that were unsuccessful in their bids. What was refreshing throughout the day, was the willingness and openness to discuss the challenges and failures – let’s call them learnings – from bidding and staging year-long cultural programmes and being honest about what legacy has or has not been delivered. You can watch the symposium here and read the ECoC News article.
Dr Beatriz Garcia (in yellow) and I’m the one standing two to her right with my eyes closed (!) with fellow panellists, some of the delegates and host city representatives from Bialsko-Biała 2029 ECoC bid team in the city’s library. Photo courtesy of Bielsko-Biało 2029 bid team
Culture Next was set up in 2017 by bidding cities to focus on capacity building, organising conferences and annual meetings, and to develop a platform for promoting member cities, as well as facilitating collaborations among them. It is co-funded by the European Union through the Creative Europe programme. ECoC News was established in 2018 on a voluntary basis to share news about European Capitals of Culture.
What was evident in the discussions throughout the day is the lack of clarity around the brand of the European Capital of Culture. There is very little direction from the European Commission about what the year must incorporate, no direction about joint host city collaborations, no shared common evaluation framework, no visual identity and therefore no brand toolkit. Each city is effectively starting from scratch, learning on the job and informally from previous host cities, hence the need for the Culture Next network. The underpinning ECoC designation and aims (see below) are often lost behind the city branding.
According to the European Commission (EC), the European Capitals of Culture initiative is designed to:
Highlight the richness and diversity of cultures in Europe
Celebrate the cultural features Europeans share
Increase European citizens' sense of belonging to a common cultural area
Foster the contribution of culture to the development of cities
The EC also highlights that the following opportunities can be delivered through ECoC:
Regenerate cities
Raising the international profile of cities
Enhancing the image of cities in the eyes of their own inhabitants
Breathing new life into a city's culture
Boosting tourism
Unlike the UK City of Culture designation (although there is no budget attached and no agreed evaluation framework), the successful city has access to opportunities to secure substantial funding from different public sector funds and is usually the host of major annual events such as the Turner Prize.
The expectations for what major cultural programmes can deliver for places far outweigh the resources and timescales allocated and it seems the looser the remit of the designation, the greater the expectations – from residents, politicians, funders, sponsors, and the media. Surely, it’s time to stop expecting culture to solve all of a city’s problems, as well as put on a great show on less resources than a major commercial brand would spend on a new product launch.
Claire McColgan CBE, Director of Culture, Major Events and Tourism, Liverpool City Council, who was the first person appointed to work on Liverpool ’08 (about the time I started working on Manchester International Festival), spoke at the launch of Creating the golden thread report. She passionately articulated how Liverpool can trace its mix of confidence and ambition, now firmly rooted in the city’s DNA, back to 2008 and all the way through to last year’s successful hosting of Eurovision 2023. Claire highlighted the need to tell our stories more effectively and connect them to the human experience, a sentiment repeatedly echoed at the ECoC symposium. Because let’s face it, it’s impossible to reduce long-term generational change and personal impact stories into a simple financial return on investment.
I’ll be watching with interest to see if Bielsko-Biała, known as Little Manchester during its textiles manufacturing heyday and now the City of Weaves, is successful in its bid to become Poland’s 2029 European Capital of Culture with the theme of Weaving Wellbeing. The decision will be announced in September this year.
Stara Fabryka Textile Museum, Bialsko-Biała. Photo: Helen Palmer
UK Festivals News
One of the big festival stories that broke just after I’d sent out last month’s newsletter was the controversy and cancellation of Baille Gifford sponsorship of most UK literary festivals, due to boycotts from speakers and performers over the firm’s links to Israel and fossil fuel companies. Though EdFringe defends their sponsorship. Lots of comment generated here, here, here and here too.
More UK festival cancellations, up to 50 this year. Most are commercial music festivals including the UK’s longest running music festival. Here are some of the reasons why. It’s the ‘worst time ever’ for festivals due to doubling costs.
This month Blackpool launches the UK’s first dance-based fringe festival in the nation’s ‘capital of dance’.
Liverpool’s Africa Oyé festival is offering work placements for people aged 18-24 and looking for volunteers of any age.
Aldeburgh Festival’s outgoing Chief Executive Roger Wright looks back on the last 10 years.
Estuary Festival in Essex has announced next year’s theme.
The Stage rounds up performing arts and theatre at some of the major summer festivals including Glastonbury. Retailer Decathlon has set up a tent buy-back scheme for music festivals.
Without Walls are recruiting for a new Chair of the Board, deadline 26 July.
International Festivals News
Last month Ireland hosted Europe’s only all-female circus festival.
Thomas Heatherwick will curate Seoul Biennale of Architecture 2025.
China launches a new major culture festival this year.
Gwangju Biennale in South Korea expands its pavilion project.
New Zealand’s Auckland Art Gallery announces a new Triennial launching in July.
India’s Chennai Photo Biennale and the Photoworks Festival, supported by the British Council are offering a Darkroom Residency.
The list of artists has been announced for this year’s El Museo del Barrio’s La Trienal in New York.
New senior appointment at one of Europe’s biggest cultural festivals.
The Cultural Olympiad in the build-up to this summer’s Paris Olympic Games is now underway. You can lose yourself dancing in the Louvre like Beyoncé or choose from hundreds of events taking place across the capital and the country.
Wacky story of the month – a fringe festival like no other - Clownchella festival.
One of the puppets at the Banialuka Teatr Lalek Puppet Theatre in Bialsko-Biała. Photo: Helen Palmer
Festival Highlights for July
UK
Plenty of music festivals to choose from, whether it’s folk in Cambridge and Warwick, jazz and blues in Birmingham and Edinburgh, classical music in the world’s oldest running music festival Three Choirs in Worcester, and Cheltenham Music Festival, Lake District Summer Music Festival, Summer at Snape Festival in the beautiful town of Aldeburgh in Suffolk, Ryedale Festival in North Yorkshire, and of course the world’s biggest classical music festival – the BBC Proms.
Lots of festivals spanning multiple artforms including a mix of music, theatre, dance, opera, literature, comedy and talks such as Buxton International Festival nestled in the Peak District, JAM on the Marsh Festival on Kent’s Romney Marsh, Holt Festival in North Norfolk and also in Norfolk there’s King’s Lynn Festival and the Young Norfolk Arts Festival by and for young people, Also Festival in Compton Verney, Warwickshire, Islington Festival of Music and Art, Eastside Arts Festival in Belfast, Refract in Trafford, Greater Manchester, Liverpool Arab Arts Festival and Warrington Contemporary Arts Festival.
Literary and ideas festivals abound in Penzance in Cornwall, London’s European Poetry Festival, Dartington Trust and Byline Festival in Totnes, Devon (also includes food, comedy, film and dancing!), Hull’s Fresh Ink Playwriting Festival, Love Stories etc. modern romantic fiction festival at Manchester Central Library and Chester’s Festival of Ideas.
Street performance, outdoor festivals and carnivals include Winchester’s Hat Fair, this year’s sports-themed Manchester Day, Surge Festival and Merchant City Festival in Glasgow, Isle of Wight Mardi Gras, Exmouth Festival, Ensemble Festival in London’s Royal Victoria Dock and B:D Festival in Bradford.
Kaleidoscope Festival, the annual celebration of neurodiversity, inclusion and the talents of those living with a disability returns to Chester’s Storyhouse. Hijinx’s Unity Festival is one of Europe’s largest inclusive arts festivals, and the only one of its kind in Wales, taking place in Cardiff with pre-festival satellite events in North Wales.
Film Festivals this month include Cinema Rediscovered in Bristol (on my hit list to visit next year), and online film streaming platform MUBI comes to Manchester for MUBIfest.
If you’re looking for hands-on experiences, check out Bury Festival of Art and National Festival of Making in Blackburn. For dance fans like me, there’s Yorkshire Dance’s Ageless Festival, and Strike a Light’s Future Dance Fest in Gloucester.
Fall under nature’s spell at the family friendly Timber Festival in the East Midlands. Explore the power of arts and wellbeing in TAKE FIVE, Weston Art + Health Festival.
And finally, having visited the puppet theatre in Bialsko-Biała, who also host one of Europe’s biggest puppet festivals in October, I must include the Beverley Puppet Festival.
The largest secular, stained glass window in Poland in Bielsko-Biała. Photo: Helen Palmer.
International
In addition to the hundreds of festivals and events taking place for this year’s Paris Cultural Olympiad, some of France’s major July festivals include Festival d’Avignon, Festival Paris L’Été, Cratère Surfaces celebrating its 25th anniversary in the south of France, Chalon Dans La Rue in eastern France and Nice Jazz Festival, which I have great memories of attending many years ago when it was previously held in the grounds of the Musée Matisse.
More jazz at the famous Montreux Jazz Festival in Canada and the North Sea Jazz Festival in Dublin. Also in Ireland are West Cork Literary Festival, Galway International Arts Festival, Cairde Sligo Arts Festival, and Dublin’s Festival of Curiosity exploring science, art, design and technology.
Two dance festivals are on my wish list to attend in future. The Biennale Danza in Venice, directed this year by Wayne McGregor (from my home town of Stockport), and Julidans International Festival for contemporary dance in Amsterdam.
Also in The Netherlands, there is a choice of outdoor theatre festivals including Deventer op Stelten and the Miramiro Summer Festival.
There’s international classical music at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, performing arts at Canada’s Toronto Fringe Festival and Williamstown Theatre Festival in New York.
And one of Europe’s biggest Pride events, Christopher Street Day takes place in Berlin.
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See you next month for more festival news, stories, and insights.